Admitted murderer of Allenwood cell mate no longer facing execution

WILLIAMSPORT — The defendant in an 18-year-old federal murder case that has had more ups and downs than a roller coaster no longer is facing the death penalty.

U.S. Eastern District Judge Joel H. Slomsky Thursday ruled the appropriate sentence for David Paul Hammer was life in prison without parole.

Hammer, 55, was indicted in 1996 and, in the midst of his trial two years later, pleaded guilty for first-degree murder in the killing of his Allendwood penitentiary cell mate, Andrew Marti.

Hammer, who is serving terms totaling 1,200 years from convictions in his native Oklahoma, subsequently claimed Marti's death on April 16, 1996 occurred while they were having consensual sex.

The trial jury, following Hammer's guilty plea, recommended he be given the death penalty. In 2004, just days before he was to receive a lethal injection, Hammer won a stay of execution.

Two years later, U.S. Middle District Senior Judge Malcolm Muir vacated the death sentence, finding that prosecutors withheld evidence during the penalty phase that would have bolstered Hammer's claim that he and Marti were having consensual sex.

Slomsky wrote his decision Hammer should not be executed was based upon multiple circumstances, including Hammer's acceptance of responsibility and remorsefulness, his extended family history of dysfunction, abuse and mental illness, his mental and emotional impairments and his self-improvement.

The judge specifically cited Hammer's charitable contributions while nine years on death row in the federal prison at Terra Haute, Ind., and writing to at-risk children counseling them against engaging in criminal conduct.